Today's Words of Wisdom - October 12, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Robert Fitzgerald (1910 - 1985):

"Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation."

Art Clokey (1921 - 2010):

"Clay is embedded in our subconscious. It has been there for at least 50,000 years."

Jane Siberry (1955 - ):

"It won’t rain all the time

The sky won’t fall forever"

Today is also Freethought Day. Here are some quotations to commemorate it:

“Nature is what we know. We do not know about the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me – the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke – mercy, kindness, love – He also made me the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, love for that fish come in? No; nature made us – nature did it all – not the gods of the religions.” – Thomas Edison

“The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one. One worth clinging to. But you don’t need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It’s not just an idea. It’s reality. We’re discovering the hidden orders of the universe every day. The inverse square law of gravitation is amazing. Fractals, the theory of relativity, the genome; these are magnificently beautiful constructs.” – Adam Savage

“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.” – Bertrand Russell

February 11, 2015

Good Morning! Here are your daily birthday quotations...

Thomas A. Edison (1847 – 1931):

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

and

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

and

“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”

and

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.”

Jane Yolen (1939 - ):

“Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.”

and

“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.”

Mo Willems (1968 - ):

“A book, being a physical object, engenders a certain respect that zipping electrons cannot. Because you cannot turn a book off, because you have to hold it in your hands, because a book sits there, waiting for you, whether you think you want it or not, because of all these things, a book is a friend. It’s not just the content, but the physical being of a book that is there for you always and unconditionally.”

and

“The difference between children and adults is that they're shorter - not dumber.”